00:00:00.829 - 00:00:21.120

We would hitchhike, we would go around the country. We would, there would be a list of people we'd say, ok, here's a list of people, a list of places. How are we going, you know, who are we going to go to? Um, oh, I'm gonna stop

00:00:21.200 - 00:00:37.130

at, I'm gonna stop at a friend of a friend's house and because she's a lesbian and I'm a lesbian and we're hitchhiking cross country. We're gonna be welcome to crash at their house for a couple of nights, you know, or we had, I had a pickup

00:00:37.139 - 00:01:04.739

truck and we slept on a mattress in the back of the pickup truck and drove across country. You know, we, and we'd play music and do whatever that's beautiful. We were, I call myself a, a political hippie radical dike. Um What other activism did you participate

00:01:04.750 - 00:01:30.160

in? Oh, my God. Oh my God. I have been an activist my whole life. Um I, the first, uh the first picture of I have of me as an activist. There was in the 19 seventies, there was a thing called Snuff Films. Snuff and it was

00:01:30.169 - 00:01:59.870

films where women would be phys would be in the film portrayed as being killed. And they were, and there was a woman by the name of Barbara Deming who had been a Quaker civil rights peace activist from the 19 fifties and sixties. And she lived about,

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she lived in a comm community really tiny community like in Rio, Nido or Monte Rio and probably Monte Rio. And in her neighborhood film film place, they were showing one of these snuff films and there was like six lesbians in that region. She called us up.

00:02:22.429 - 00:02:42.250

We all live 45 minutes an hour away and said, come on down, we all drove and we had a, we had a picket protest and Barbara's Demings partner had to sit through the whole film however gross it was so that she could then complain that it

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was against decent standards and, and permit and say that that film had to be stopped. So that's what we did. That was one of the first political stuff. One of the first, you know, it wasn't a lesbian thing, but it was a po a feminist thing.

00:02:59.440 - 00:03:23.770

But everyone who was doing it were lesbians. And that's what a lot of us there. It's very hard to say what's feminism and what's lesbianism in that period of time, I have organized an international women's peace camp with, you know, that to protest an all women's

00:03:23.779 - 00:03:45.899

peace camp that protested nuclear weapons and had 3000 women there one weekend and 10,000 women there over the summer. Um, I've been, I've done shit loads of political organizing. That's amazing. How do you feel about the new generation of queers? And what is your favorite part

00:03:45.910 - 00:04:23.028

about us? Ok. This is a line I use to people my age. I am envious. I'm jealous. I'm really proud that you're on my back. Um, and political stuff is not a straight line poli politics and, and rights don't go like this. They go like this.

00:04:25.089 - 00:04:52.890

And we're down here, this is where we were a while ago. We were heading up like this, but now we're down here and the only way we're gonna get back up to here is if all of us start working together to do politics. Um, and I

00:04:52.899 - 00:05:16.890

think, you know, people are doing it, you know, I'm really scared for trans kids, you know, I'm really, really scared for trans kids. Um, but I believe that we can all do something that's going to improve it and make it up here. So, and I'm excited

00:05:16.899 - 00:05:42.570

to see what you all do because all of us break norms. My generation broke every single norm. You could imagine women were not allowed to have bank accounts. Women were not allowed to have no mortgages. When you, when, when I graduated from college, there were in

00:05:42.579 - 00:06:01.950

the newspapers, there would be for employment lists, job lists and there would be male job lists and female job lists. I was only interested in the male job list, but I was not allowed to put, to apply for any of those. And there was a lesbian

00:06:01.959 - 00:06:26.279

in Seattle who brought a suit against it, who brought a suit against the paper. And, and nationally those stopped again. She wasn't doing it as a lesbian. She was doing it as a feminist, you know, but it was, those lines were so blurred. Got it. Um,

00:06:26.760 - 00:06:47.529

what, uh, like jobs were you interested? And like, what career did you pursue? I have, well, when I, I moved from Buffalo where I grew up and I met, you know, I got involved with women's studies, I moved to the cat skills and the cat skills

00:06:47.929 - 00:07:10.829

I learned to really, I learned with the help of a woman who had been at Stonewall and Lavender Menace and the uh old uh older, maybe five years older than I was black Butch Dike. She helped me learn how to be a good butch dike. You

00:07:10.839 - 00:07:37.470

know, I ended up living in the country, not modern Sebastopol country, but real country. Um learned how to cut, learned how to build, ca, learned how to do carpentry and build cabins, learned how to do gardening and farming. And so for years I did that, that's

00:07:37.480 - 00:07:56.339

one and I would do that half of a year and then do political organizing the other half. Awesome. Then I, after I, then I moved to Seattle to, I decided I was 3538. And I'm like, oh, I can't do this the rest of my life, my

00:07:56.350 - 00:08:19.410

body is gonna kill me. And I ended up going to school to become to for an acupuncturist or Chinese medicine. And that was around the time of the A I DS epidemic. And I ended up running an A I DS clinic for 20 years um at

00:08:19.420 - 00:08:41.090

Chinese Medicine Aids Clinic, not um but it was in the equivalent of a, the Bi San Francisco General in the biggest hospital in Seattle. Um and their political activism and now I'm down here and there's a w there's a queer film festival. Do you all know

00:08:41.099 - 00:08:59.380

about that? Now, can you tell us about it? So, I'm one of the producers of it. It's going to be at Kai's Place over there at the Rialto. Um It's going to be the June 9th through 11th. We're going to be showing five films. Um One

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of them is a lesbian film about a woman who is just been divorced from her wife and is driving across country, goes to visit her, the woman, she had a crush on when she was in high school and hangs out with and ends up hanging out

00:09:17.270 - 00:09:36.929

with a gay man and discovers that she really can still have fun and dance and do those things and moves on with her life. Then there's one about A I DS in Los Angeles. Um and the political organizing around that then there's one that's called Wild

00:09:36.940 - 00:10:00.609

Hood. That is a film about two spirited teen people who, and it was made by a two spirited native ma ma, native, non binary person. Um There is a film about people who were trying to get asylum and then called Unsettled call women people, both men

00:10:00.619 - 00:10:20.669

and women. Probably trans two. I can't remember off the top of my head, but I'm assuming it includes trans two who are trying to get asylum here in the United States because they were being persecuted. It's called unsettled. And then about uh 12 year old little

00:10:20.679 - 00:10:46.239

bear boy who goes on a camping trip and realizes he has this crush on this, on his cousin's boyfriend who's a bear guy. So it, it's a kind of a teen realizing I'm 12 year old realizing, oh, I'm I'm se I'm sexual with towards men, not

00:10:46.250 - 00:11:01.349

towards women. So those are the five films that are gonna be shown. All right. That sounds awesome. You'd mentioned the eighth epidemic a few times now. Um What was your experience with that? And like, what was your feelings in the moment? How many people are in

00:11:01.359 - 00:11:36.940

your senior cla in your cla in your year class? And Annie 354 100. Ok. I'm gonna say 400 right now. You are friends, you know, all 400 people theoretically and five years, half of those people will be dead and they will die within six months of

00:11:36.950 - 00:11:57.479

being diagnosed with A I DS. You will not know people died until you go. You know, I haven't seen Jimmy in a long time. Whatever happened. Hey, Joe, whatever happened to Jimmy. Oh, he died six weeks ago. That's what it was like. Then they came out

00:11:57.489 - 00:12:17.109

with the first HIV medicine and now people could live maybe six months or a year after they were diagnosed, you wouldn't know someone was diagnosed and the way you'd find out you had a I DS was all of a sudden you had a red dot You

00:12:17.119 - 00:12:38.820

know, I'm gonna use your face as an example. Imagine this was like a little bit bigger and a little bit darker, like a bruise purple. You'd be dead, you'd see it on your face and six months later you'd be dead. Um, I know one guy who

00:12:39.219 - 00:13:00.500

was one of my patients and he said to me, I had, I was an international air, I was an international host on an airplane. I had a black book that went all over the world. I am the only person who is still alive in that black

00:13:00.510 - 00:13:32.489

book. Um, so you've got 400 people, five years, half of them are dead. 10 years. People are living for 3 to 4 years now because of new meds. Um, and 15 years later, 30 people out of your 400 will still be alive and it will not

00:13:32.500 - 00:13:58.359

be your friends. It will be the obnoxious misogynist boy who had lots of sis white male privilege but was gay. He will be aware he will be alive and all of your friends will be dead and your parents will have some, not necessarily your parents, but

00:13:58.369 - 00:14:23.440

you will know people who have parents have refused to see their sons as they were dying. And it was the lesbians like me who went and took care of people. Um, we were the ones who bathed them, took them to the hospital, held their hands when

00:14:23.450 - 00:14:45.409

they were dying and buried them because their parents would not have done that. That's what the 19 eighties was like in A I DS. Um And then you got on what used to be called the co technically was, was called the cocktail. It was three meds

00:14:45.419 - 00:15:18.359

that you took together. It really was called heart high antiviral active resp response therapy. And people would literally live the minute they got on that. I knew one guy who he was such a sweet man, little effeminate black man who had a brain disease that was

00:15:18.369 - 00:15:40.309

gonna kill him. And all of a sudden he got on this on the cocktail and I was marching in the pride parade, you know, in Seattle and he was sitting on the, on the side and I went to wave at him and he stood up and

00:15:40.320 - 00:15:59.390

he had been on the co he had been on the heart of the cocktail and I went over and hugged him and I'm, I'm gonna start crying, you know? But it's like it was getting on medi the, the medicines and the heart medicines really changed people's

00:15:59.400 - 00:16:20.450

lives that much. Literally, a few weeks before he would, I expected him to be dead. Did you have any friends who died of A I DS? Of course, can you tell us about them? I, I was working with A I DS, You know, of course I

00:16:20.460 - 00:16:50.260

knew people who died. Um It was everyone, it was drag queens. It was political activists. It were lesbians. It was people who are drug users. It didn't, you know, it was everyone. Um you didn't have, you know, it could be, you know, it was, it could

00:16:50.270 - 00:17:12.680

be anyone. So some of one of the people, two people I can remember are Michael Michael. You know, there was the big national marches on Washington. Michael had been an or had been a organizer of one of the national marches on Washington. His family was absolutely

00:17:12.689 - 00:17:32.838

totally supportive. And when he died, he, they were all there. He had an amazing memorial service. It was one of the first power points, you know, when people on people's lives, it was one of the first times I have ever seen that really well done. He,

00:17:32.848 - 00:17:52.060

you know, they have paid someone to go create that. Um He be, he died at home. We could all go over and visit his body. And say goodbye where it wasn't in a sterile place. We would be in his, you know, at his bed, in his

00:17:52.069 - 00:18:14.060

room. It was wonderful. Then there was Bronwyn. Bronwyn was a woman who was psychic and she was an empath. She meaning she absorbed every, she could pick up what other people were feeling and talk to you. She was also able to do readings of what was

00:18:14.069 - 00:18:28.739

gonna happen in the future. And one time we were talking about my mother who was still alive. At that point, I said, you know what's gonna happen to my mother? Can you do a reading on my mother? And she was like, ok, this, this, this, this,

00:18:29.150 - 00:18:50.689

oh I can't see past February. So she's probably gonna die in February. Well turned out Bronwyn was the one who died in February. And that's why she couldn't see past it. And when her mother came, I was one of her medical power of attorney people and

00:18:51.390 - 00:19:06.989

I was there and luckily I was the medical power of at there were two of us who were medical power of attorneys. And the mother was like, the mother had, was Catholic and was like against her because she was a psychic and because she was a

00:19:07.000 - 00:19:30.430

lesbian and everything else. And the mother was like, realizing that her child was dying and said, you have to do absolutely everything you can to save this person's life. And we said, no, you only need to do it long enough for the mother to come and

00:19:30.439 - 00:19:46.439

say goodbye to her and that was who they and Sh Bronwyn would not have been able to come back. She was, you know, she was on her way to being brain dead, you know. Um, you know, Bal was a great, we used to, you know, Bal

00:19:46.609 - 00:20:08.689

was a great friend. So, I don't know. Um, you know, you, that might be the guy next door. You know, the guy who lives in the next apartment, it must have been a very scary time. Yeah, it was, it wasn't, we didn't have chance to be

00:20:08.699 - 00:20:36.040

scared. We had to just do stuff, you know, it was scary for the men. The men were, you know, and the men were the people who the men were, the people who really changed things. You know, we were there with a up, you know, we, they

00:20:36.050 - 00:20:54.469

do a up use the stuff that we had discovered and created during feminism. And then we went and we started doing political actions and street theaters and all of that stuff around A I DS and we knew what was happening. We knew that you, you know,

00:20:54.479 - 00:21:11.869

we figured out what the doses of the med should be, you know, that kind of thing. So what do you want? Do you want me to ask? I have one more question. Do you have any advice for the LGBT Q youth? Now know that you don't

00:21:11.880 - 00:21:37.969

have to have everything figured out right now that your identity will change, but you will always be who you are and you can always be proud of yourself um and have fun but be political active. You know, it's fun. We had fun. We were doing, you

00:21:37.979 - 00:21:54.599

know, we were doing dances and we were having friends and we were sleeping with everyone and don't believe, don't, don't believe that my generation was as sexual the way peop some people try and say no, that's why I said who was my first love? I, I

00:21:54.609 - 00:22:09.540

don't know who my first love was but I know who my first long term relationship was. You know, we were sleeping with whoever we wanted to. You know, it was fun and you can have fun and you can raise hell and be think about what you're

00:22:09.550 - 00:22:21.160

gonna do and plan it and have fun doing it. Thank you so much and I am wrapping it up. Thank you so much. Thank you.